The world of distributed computing is currently in the midst of a major transition, as tightly coupled, integration-centric approaches gradually lose favor and give way to loosely coupled, Service-oriented computing techniques. At the core of this trend are Service-oriented architectures (SOAs), which promise greater flexibility in the way that companies produce and consume IT assets, in particular when IT environments are heterogeneous and business requirements are dynamic.

However, building SOAs is challening for most organizations, for several reasons: they involve a different way of thinking about software resources, they require a level of architectural discipline, and companies need a range of software solutions to build, run, and manage an SOA. In particular, companies need a framework of capabilities that include access to data sources and the composition of Services into business processes in a secure, managed environment.

Today, most enterprises must purchase a range of products to assemble the software they need to build an SOA. However, there is a new class of product called the SOA Implementation Framework that offers all the elements a company would need to build and run an SOA. Such frameworks are only now coming to market, but one such framework, Rogue Wave Platform X, from Rogue Wave Software, a division of Quovadx, is well-positioned to be a leader in this nascent market for comprehensive SOA software frameworks.